Reviews

Funnier than expected

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I'm not usually a fan of the slapstick comedy which I know is popular in Thailand, so was expecting to find it a bit cringey, but the slapstick comedy was well timed and made me chuckle a few times. The storyline is simple but fairly effective. Acting is pretty decent and comedic timing is good.

I liked that they incorporated some of the social themes and issues in Thailand such as the "rich kid" managing to escape the law (an obvious nod to recent events in Thailand) - played by First who does steal his scenes. I must admit, the boy does have great stage presence.

The story does lose a bit of momentum and steam toward the end. The ending is left a bit open which suggests there may be another film in the works where First's character (called "Great") plays a more prominent role along with the rest of the cast. It would be fun to see where they take it next.

Worth a watch if you have some spare time .

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"The past is past. Now is now."

Director Ozu tackled the very real problem of war orphans in the uplifting Record of a Tenement Gentleman. Ozu used a lost little boy to quietly open the closed hearts of people damaged by loss and deprivation and a cranky widow to shelter one not her own.

Ozu regular Ryu Chishu came home with a lost boy he’d found on a trip. His roommate refused to let the child stay with them. They hatched the brilliant idea of foisting the boy off on the neighbor widow, Tane. Tane was not welcoming to the idea of taking him in but relented for one night. After Kohei wet the bed, she reprimanded him and determined to be rid of him. After finding out the child’s father had apparently deserted him, she tried to desert him herself, but Kohei was too quick and determined for her. Slowly he began to wear her down and after another scolding when he ran away, she dropped everything to find him.

Tane was played by the talented Lida Choko. In her, we could see not only the grumpy middle-aged woman but also a widow making a living out of her home who had closed herself off emotionally. She portrayed a waterfall of emotions as the small boy broke her emotional dam. Seeing the gentleness in the boy she was unwilling to let him live the life of an alley cat. So great was her loving transformation that in the end she could cry generous tears of joy instead of selfish ones. Choko expertly played Tane’s regret at not having treated the boy with kindness from the beginning. It was a beautifully well-rounded performance.

Ozu showed the trauma of orphan children through Kohei. Silent for nearly 30 minutes after he appeared, and with very few words thereafter, the boy held everything inside. His stress over his abandonment and hostile environment came out through bedwetting at night. He observed homeless boys fishing along the water in order to feed themselves. In the final scene, Ozu showed numerous orphan boys at the base of a famous statue in Tokyo.

As always, every scene was composed and shot with exquisite care and Ozu’s teapot had its usual closeup. Not one for talking about the war much, he showed the piles of rubble lining the streets and even used in the tenements. The neighbors dealt with scarceness in post-war Japan, sharing information and food. He moved the scenes further outside as well and there was a gorgeous shot of Tane and Kohei on a beach right before she abandoned him. I admit to choking up watching the little boy race across the dunes to catch up with her.

The film closed with Tane and her neighbors all having been touched by the boy. They came to realize how selfish they had become, refraining from helping those in need. They vowed to be more generous in spirit. Record of a Tenement Gentleman was a film that teetered close to being overly sentimental, but for me it hit that melancholy heartwarming sweet spot.


11/16/22

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There are some things I appreciate about this movie, but...

There are some things I appreciate about this movie because they were good. So I'll start with them. First of all, the actors did a really great job. But I did not expect anything else, because I know the possibilities of each of them. I really liked the transitions between scenes with and without sound. The scenes without sound showed the perspective of the deaf mother and daughter better, and I think it was a well-thought-out move. The last good thing is that the ending was satisfying enough.

Now let's get to the things I don't like about this movie. It was boring until the end when Kyung Mi confused the killer. It was basically a cat-and-mouse chase throughout the movie. With people around who couldn't recognize the situation.

Despite some good things, I'll probably soon forget about this movie. Obviously, a good general idea combined with not knowing how to develop it always results in a boring production.

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When the creators can't treasure such beautiful story...

Story : Nobody can deny that their story is beautiful, from how they first meet to how their story ended, it's indeed beautiful, even those nightmare years of one's selfish mistake, we all want to see the ups and downs of a forever- lasting love...

Storytelling: Now this is the place where my nagging (!) begins. I suppose we only had one main lead (Akira) but it doesn't meam the other character (Yuki) had to be pictured so poorly and 2D, even those monologues of Yuki couldn't fill the big hole of his character's absence, which was damaging the movie.
It was not even consistent in its genre, it can't be a tear jerking melodrama for one half, then suddenly become the romcom where main leads meet again in another continent after 8 years of separation and reconcile with skipping the step of " what the f were they doing this 8 years" for the other half, right??
What a waste of story! Honestly, all the big damages were done by the script and it could be easily repaired if they could be a little less loyal to the original manga, I've read the manga and the movie has the same exact flaws of the manga 😀
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Directing was really mediocre (we expect this to be a MOVIE, right? we want the standard shots but its shots were of a tv drama) , acting was average...
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Overall : wasted story, lacking script, not a standard quality production for a movie (but passable for a bl drama)
🌌Recommended if you're here for the fun but if you want something to blow your mind and make a tattoo in your heart, then it's not IT...

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Mediocre

Plot: Two student policemen who went to find girlfriends in a bar accidentally witnessed a kidnapping incident of a woman they were about to hit on. Nothing too deep about the plot, it was rather flat and shallow.

Acting: Convincing acting of everyone. Just two silly students who suddenly found out about their passion and mission in life.

Music: Nothing memorable for me.

Rewatch Value: Not something I would rewatch even on boring days.

Overall: It has it’s funny moments but not exactly light but more on subpar plot and dull flow. 6 stars for the comical sense and acting but not recommendable. You won’t miss out on anything if you haven’t watched it yet.

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If you want to help yourself, help others first

Red Beard was the last film Kurosawa Akira and Mifune Toshiro made together. If it had to be the last one, it was a gentle and glorious way to end their partnership. This film seemed uncharacteristically hopeful and optimistic for a Kurosawa film. I found it to be heartwarming and heartrending.

Dr. Noboru Yasumoto takes what he thinks is a tour of a backwater clinic run by a dictatorial doctor named Red Beard. In a cruel surprise he finds out that he has been assigned there by the magistrate and has no choice but to stay. A graduate of the Dutch school in Nagasaki, this smelly place filled with poor people is not worthy of his skills. He’s in the game to serve a Shogun, make money and live the easy life. In a quietly dramatic scene, he meets Red Beard aka Dr. Niide. It turns out Red Beard’s rules are for the benefit of the patients and staff in order to keep the clinic clean. He serves people who cannot pay in the afternoon and takes a personal interest in his patients. He believes the body and mind must be healed in order for a person to be cured.

Yasumoto arrogantly decides he will treat the homicidal patient locked up on the property nicknamed The Mantis. In a spectacularly filmed five-minute scene with no edits Yasumoto and The Mantis have a dangerous encounter that ends up altering his view of Red Beard. The older doctor doesn’t lecture, he begins to train the brash young doctor with experiences. He asks him to stay with an older man who is dying. Sitting with the man who is gasping for air, the young doctor can barely stay in the room as death becomes too real. When he’s relieved by one of the women he practically runs out only to be called to help Red Beard in a primitive surgery. A woman with a gash on her side and intestines hanging out is thrashing on the table. Yasumoto finds out he’s not as accomplished as he thinks he is and maybe Red Bed is more accomplished than he thought he was.

Through a series of vignettes focusing on various patients, Yasumoto begins to lose his arrogance. Instead of faceless, nameless people unworthy of his attention, they begin to have names and importance. The gruff Red Beard reveals himself to be flawed but also an exceptional man who cares for people. When the local government cuts the clinic’s funding, Red Beard increases the charges for the wealthy. When a young woman married to an abusive husband needs help, he has no problem blackmailing the local magistrate to help her though he does criticize himself for the unseemly action. And in a scene viewers were surely hoping for, he takes down a group of ruffians creating new patients while rescuing a child from a brothel. Red Beard is a genuinely good man yet like most Kurosawa heroes he’s also a rebel, lying outside the norm.

The last half of the film sees the complete transformation of Yasumoto when Red Beard puts him in charge of Otoyo, the young girl rescued from the brothel. In the process of healing her, he becomes sick and she takes over as his caregiver. And in the spirit of the film as she begins to receive kindness and trust, she passes that on to a small thief in need of it himself. The women who worked there went from distrusting Otoyo to protecting her and thrashing the Madame with daikons when the woman came to take Otoyo away. In one of the most moving scenes I’ve seen in any movie, as a boy is dying the women and Otoyo go to a well to call his spirit back by shouting his name into the well. It was haunting listening them to wail in hopes of saving the child and creatively shot by Kurosawa.

Though the movie is called Red Beard the story is about Yasumoto’s journey from self-centered, over-confident doctor to a humbled physician who sees the whole person regardless of their income. Otoyo became the heart of the film as she went from a tiny world where she couldn’t trust anyone to a larger complex world with people she could trust. Red Beard grounded the film with his wisdom and gravitas.

Near the end of the film, I was surprised to see Ryu Chishu make an appearance during a wedding scene. There were two domestic scenes in this film, something rare in a Kurosawa film unless he’s turning them on their head. Ryu made 52 films with Ozu, a director known for his domestic films. It was an odd, but satisfying cross-over.

As he usually did, Kurosawa made his hero suffer and face trials as he finds the courage to help others. In this film that meant small acts of kindness that blossomed into more, slowly changing the lives of others. Instead of trying to transform the political system, it was more about changing the people around them, healing them mind and body. Though the world outside was cruel and filled with suffering the clinic was an oasis of charity and good will. Yasumoto had Red Beard to be his master and show him the way. Yasumoto returned the favor by helping others.

The music was beautiful, heavily influenced by Brahms and Hadyn. Natural sounds and bells were often interspersed with the moving score. Kurosawa also used long wordless scenes layered in deep meaning. The actors expertly played their parts. Mifune portrayed the wise older doctor with a gentle flair. I did, however, enjoy him going into action mode, doctor style, even briefly. Kayama Yuzo took Yasumoto from an unlikeable petulant jerk to a compassionate and more open-minded adult. Niki Terumi as Otoyo showed a traumatized young girl and then one learning confidence in herself and others convincingly. Kurosawa also had some great shots, one I have to mention is when a female character walks out of a cloud of dust after an earthquake, devastation all around and in the distance a line of people scurrying away. Magnificent.

The only detractions for me were in the first half of the film, there were four perfidious women who caused some of the characters man pain. I’m often not a fan of Kurosawa’s view and portrayal of women. He did redeem himself some with Otoyo’s story and the women who worked at the clinic who often formed a sort of Greek chorus or cheerleading squad for the other characters.

Overall, this was an enjoyable film. Despite the cruelty humans caused one another, the people in the clinic reached out to heal. I laughed, I cried, I got angry, this movie took me on a three-hour ride that was over too quickly. This film was Kurosawa’s final hero film and Red Beard and Yasumoto were deserving heroes with which to end that era. Red Beard’s advice to help others in order to help yourself is still a worthwhile sentiment.



11/15/22

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Nice movie with battle between good and evil

This was an ok movie. The storyline of a battle between two dragon-sisters fighting for good and evil isn’t exactly new. The fight scenes and scenery is beautiful (for most parts).
Character wise we get an evil sister helping a man to become emperor and a good sister helping a young man try to fulfill his destiny.
Acting wise this is pretty good but I couldn’t really feel the chemistry between FL (good sister) and ML (Hong Ji) - at least not until the last scene. The chemistry between 2FL (evil sister) and 2ML (King Ning) was way better.
Well, if you like fantasy movies and have an hour or so to waste, this is not a bad watch.

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The saving grace is Shinobu who was such a great friend so of course I was upset that they killed him off. When asuka planned to die for the demon the demon ended up taking another causality to death which made no sense when she already agreed to be it’s sister. If you look at the Japanese predecessor “Dark Waters” the mother agreed to die and be the demons mother..and she was able to spare her innocent daughters life.

It also didn’t make sense that a ritual was happening to save them and it had zero effect on the demon at all. If there was a sequel it’s obvious that the demon would still follow around Asuka since she’s who it made the promise with.Unless they were able to rid of it but it isn’t clear in the ending at all.

Asuka was so off psychologically that it made ZERO SENSE why she was even living alone. Only towards the end we see she actually has some support system yet they only stepped in when she was already double traumatized to the point of no return.
The elderly deceased spirit next door had more effect on waking her up more than anyone else. Also makes no sense she didn’t realize she was in a time loop even after admitting to her hallucinated parents that they were repeating themselves every morning.

From the very first scene I already knew the main character was going to be dreadful. Her poor decision making skills despite her ptsd was frustrating. She couldn’t realize that it was odd a child was playing alone with no parents and continued to befriend the kid demon. Even if it was a normal kid she didn’t question this at all. Maybe her trauma caused her to loose brain cells as well…
It was a good one time watch with a good twist however

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I have mixed feelings about this title.

If only people could speak and talk through the problem before it escalates too much...

I felt it was really stereotypical. Role of man and woman... She expected her boyfriend to do everything, preferably right away, despite the understandable fatigue after work, getting up early and a very long commute. Also, he was always supposed to come to her, she never even offered to visit him. They never talked to each other about their expectations and problems. They just had an argument when the situation escalated.

The very beginning of the movie was cute, then it got a little creepy but still sweet, and then it got sour at the end and we got a plot twist.

This movie tells a very real story that could happen in real life. However, I have mixed feelings about this title. For me, the first part of the movie was good enough, but then it got worse. I don't feel like this plot twist is needed, but it's easier for me to accept, knowing that such things also happen.

The execution was definitely missing something. The whole movie was very superficial. I couldn't get into the characters' stories.

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A BL short film with a message

Filipino filmmakers have proven that they are able to tell a complex story or/and convey an important message in a low budget short film, and ”Hidden” is another example of this.

Let me summarize the plot first. Ivan, a kind hearted young man, by mere coincidence met Dante, who was drunk, a month ago and stayed with him for some hours because he was afraid something bad might happen to the drunk boy. Now Dante has invited Ivan to his place, and after some talking to get to know each other better and exchanging compliments, the two boys get closer. Although Ivan is reluctant at first, he then agrees to make out with Dante. When one of the boys is hurt and bleeding, Dante turns into his second personality, Diego. He yells at Ivan and attacks him because he doesn't remember why the two of them have been intimate and are half naked. Ivan is scared as he doesn't understand what is going on. Then Diego realises what Dante has done, and he explains to Ivan that Diego and Dante are one and the same person. When Ivan is about to leave, Dante takes over again, and Ivan kisses him good bye and promises to meet him again.

The actors, Jesler Bernard as Ivan and Jason Real as Diego/Dante (the credits of the movie don't say who plays whom, but I found it on facebook. Unfortunately, the credits don't reveal the director and producer's names either) are handsome and do a good job – they seem to be newbies, but they are talented, so I hope to see more of them in the future.

I appreciate the good intention of the movie which combines a BL love story with an explanation of the rare dissociative identity disorder. The message is obvious: this disease exists, and people who have it can be loving and caring like ”healthy” people, and they want and deserve to be loved like everybody else.

The execution has some weaknesses, technically as well as script-wise. For example, in some scenes the actors aren't perfectly lip sync, which can be explained by a low budget, but could be fixed with simple means. Another point is that I would have liked to see a little more of the condo – instead of Dante saying he didn't clean it, a short shot could have shown it.

Now to the script. Like in some other low budget productions, the backstory, i.e. the first meeting of the two boys, is being told instead of acted. I don't like actors speaking to the fourth wall unless necessary, and I don't like voiceovers of their thoughts either, and in this case it would have been easy (and not very expensive) to film Ivan and Dante's first encounter.
Another thing that I would consider as a missed opportunity is the fact that the point of the story is already being revealed in the title. If the title had only been ”Hidden”, the switch from Dante to Diego would have been a surprise to the viewer, and thus much more effective, as it was perfectly done in the Pinoy BL series ”The Shore”, which had a similar subject.

My nagging may sound like I didn't like the movie, and reading all my complaints, I must admit they sound too harsh even to myself, because all in all I liked the movie. The intention to make the viewer familiar with DID and using a BL story as a pretext is commendable, and the movie is worth watching. I am glad that it has already been watched by 75,000 viewers on youtube, which is quite a lot, bearing in mind that it wasn't promoted much.

All in all, this is another example of an innovative Pinoy BL short film, and if you can do without rich Thai boys driving around in expensive cars, I can only recommend you to watch ”Hidden”.

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My high rating is for the child actress

I seldom watch movies, but I decided to watch this one because I read that it was a tearjerker. I geared myself up to be touched and to cry, but things are like that, the more you expect, the more something will not happen, in the end I cried only at the last scene, which if you read other reviews, was a climatic one indeed.

Positives:

1. My high rating of 9/10 is for the child actress, Jung Seo Yeon, who acted really well, like really, really well in this movie. She was convincing as a visually handicapped given her relatively young age of 7. And the last scene had a close-up shot of her wailing, tears running down her cheeks, etc., crying so pitifully that my heart really cried with her. The male lead, Jin Goo, also did well. I had nothing to criticize about his acting in particular.

2. This movie brought attention to people who were both blind and deaf, double handicap and how to communicate with them.

3. I liked the way the director shot some of the scenes, especially that related to the little girl, some were shot from her angle, something different.

Negatives:

1. Maybe it was a movie, so everything was fast, the development of the relationship between the little girl and the male lead was too fast for me to feel much throughout the movie, except the last scene.

2. I did not quite understand what the male lead’s job was in the movie basically, but those scenes were not important because they did not contribute much to the story of him and the little girl. Again, if they were not important, they became fillers which could have been better replaced by more scenes of him and the little girl’s interactions.

All in all, I would recommend if you are looking for a tearjerker, it was touching, but somehow, I would have liked to see more interactions of the male lead and the little girl, a somewhat more gradual development of their relationship.

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Very interesting concept that’s different from the normal BL

I think a lot of people missed the whole point of the short film and that’s why the rating is so low (I could be wrong, but I see a bunch of people on social media very confused about the film & i saw some say it wasn’t that great. I personally think it was pretty good for a short film… if you understand it). I definitely think if they had the funds & time, they could make this into a longer more attention grabbing psychological film but, I digress. This is my first review so apologies in advance if it’s not that great ><

It’s a short film so I’m not going to critique it harshly, I think the actors did a good job & they executed the concept well. I definitely think this was an interesting theme and It held my attention the whole time. It’s definitely not the best short film Strongberry has released but it’s still worth watching! ^^

I’ll post my explanation / review below in the comments since it contains spoilers but i recommend watching the short film first before reading~

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Mindless entertainment if you want to kill some time

This was a movie just to kill time. The story was weak, but they didn't waste a lot of time on pointless or repetitious scenes. The actors did a fair job with their characters and with the exception of the opening scene, told the story pretty clearly without too many holes or hanging issues.

CGI wasn't bad, but the OST was non-existent. No romance, and no pointless deaths. One major irritating character - you can figure that one out for yourself.

If you're looking for something to watch just for some mindless entertainment or to kill time, this might fit the bill.

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Well Written and Acted

The movie is incredibly desturbing and contains themes of pëdophilia. It's a must watch if you want to feel incredibly uncomfortable. The use of the people in masks as a symbol of trauma was such an unsettling form of art, it was amazing. I actually really enjoyed the movie. There's so many hidden plot points you really have to pay attention to to understand the movie in its entirety. Its a movie you may need to watch more than once to fully understand. The plot moves fast and there's a lot to take in. I do recommend the movie, but only if you can mentally handle it.

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